Hidden Truths
by onelifeonedirection
Summary: What if 17 years ago, 18 year old Jim Moriarty was left by his girlfriend to look after their three week old daughter. What lenghts would he go to protect her? Good!Moriarty


Words that go through people's mind when they hear the name James Moriarty is mentioned are normally things like criminal mastermind, evil, sociopath, cruel, cold. Only a few people, just two or three would describe him as kind, caring, protective, loving, genuine. One of these few people that would describe him this way is the most important person in his world, the person that he has put his life on the line for many times. Opal Louisa Moriarty, his daughter.

* * *

17 years ago (17 years before the start of the Sherlock series) (Jim's 18, Opal's 3 weeks)

'Please don't leave Lucy, I'm begging you.'

'No Jim, I can't do this anymore. You have to understand.'

'We can do this, we can do this together. Please Lucy.' Jim reached out to catch his girlfriend's wrist but she quickly pulled it out of his reach. He looked at her with pleading eyes but she just looked away from him.

'We can't, I have to go. I'm sorry.' She said to him before picking up her bag, turning round and walking down the corridor, away from Jim. He wanted to go after her, he wanted to chase after her and talk her into staying but something stopped him. A cry from inside his flat. He didn't even think twice before he ran back inside the flat, shut the door behind himself, rushed to the opposite side of the room and took the crying baby girl from her crib. He cradled her carefully in his arms and rocked her back and forth to try and comfort her.

'It's ok darling', he whispered to her, 'daddy's here, daddy's never going to leave you. Everything's going to be ok. Everything's going to be just fine.' He whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek.

* * *

14 years ago (Jim's 21, Opal's 3)

'Daddy.' The three year old Opal said as she toddled into the living room.

'What is it sweetheart?' Jim said as he picked her up and put her on his knee.

'Are you angry at me because of what I did?' She asked him as she looked at him with her big, dark brown eyes.

'I'm not angry but I want to know why you hit him.' Jim said to her as he recalled being called by Opal's nursery to say that she had hit on of the other children but wouldn't say why and was refusing to apologise. He had been politely asked to take her home and to find her another nursery to go to unless he could get her to apologise to the other child.

'He said that my mummy didn't love me and that was why she left me.' Opal said with tears in her eyes. Jim sighed and hugged his daughter tightly.

'Your mummy loves you very much; she left because she didn't think that she would be able to look after you properly. But you shouldn't have hit him and you have to apologise if you want to go back to that nursery.' Jim explained kindly to his daughter but she shook her head at him.

'I didn't like it there so I'm not going to apologise, it was really boring there all the time.' She said with a giggle. Jim just smiled at her but later spent a frustrating hour trying to find another nursery for Opal to go to.

* * *

12 years ago (Jim's 23, Opal's 5)

'Why did that man do that?' Opal asked as she sat next to Jim who was watching the news. The reporter was talking about a serial bank robber that had just been caught.

'He did it because some people in this world aren't nice and he is one of the not very nice ones.' Jim said picking his words carefully.

'No daddy, I meant why did he make it so obvious that it was him. He didn't even try and hide it; he should have just told the police that it was him instead. It would have saved a lot of time.' She told him, he looked at her with wide eyes. Did that really just come from a five year old?

* * *

7 years ago (Jim's 28, Opal's 10)

Mr. Moriarty, I'm Mrs. Brown, would you like to come through here.' Jim walked into the office of the headmistress at Opal's school. This was the second time this week he's been phoned in and it was only Wednesday.

'I assume you know why I asked you to come down here?' Mrs. Brown asked as she sat down at one side of the desk, Jim sat down at the opposite side.

'Actually I don't. Opal promised me that she would behave after the incident on Monday. Also on my way in, I saw her and when I asked her what she had done, she said that she didn't know and normally she will happily tell me. She's a very honest little girl, very changeable, but very honest.' Jim said in his daughter's defence.

'Do you ever read your daughter's homework Mr. Moriarty?' Mrs. Brown asked Jim all of a sudden.

'I check that she's done it but no, I don't read it normally unless she asks me to.' Jim said feeling slightly confused at the question.

'Maybe you should take a read of this then. All of the children in Opal's class were asked to write about what they wanted to do when they grow up and why. Opal's answer was somewhat worrying.' Mrs. Brown explained as she passed a piece of paper to Jim. He took it and began to read it aloud.

'When I grow up I want to be a criminal. Not one of those stupid ones that you see on the news that always get caught because I won't get caught. I won't make any mistakes like them and I will have a criminal empire with lots of people working for me so that they can do all of the crimes for me, I'll just organise them and be in charge.' Jim looked across the desk at Mrs. Brown.

'I don't see what the problem is really; she's just going through a phase at the minute. She loves hearing about criminals on the news. I don't see what the big deal is.' Jim said to the headmistress.

'Well let's just hope that she grows out of this phase.' Mrs. Brown said softly before standing up, Jim stood up as well and she shook his hand.

'It was nice meeting you again Mr. Moriarty.' She said and Jim took that as his cue to leave.

* * *

3 years ago (Jim's 32, Opal's 14)

Jim paced back and forth across the floor whilst contemplating what to do about what he's just found in Opal's room. He was only cleaning up a bit that was all. Jim heard the front door open and he froze and faced the door that he knew that his daughter was going to walk through any second now, the thing that he'd just found securely in his hand. Opal walked through the door with a smile on face until she saw what was in Jim's hand and then her face dropped. She tried to take it out of his hand but he quickly moved it out of her reach.

'Where did you get this, how did you get this and why on earth do you have it?' Jim asked her, he never got angry with anyone, especially not his daughter but he knew that he may have trouble controlling his temper this time.

'What were you doing going through my things?' Opal asked him softly, her anger was visually building up in her eyes.

'I wasn't, I was tidying up, just putting some things back in your room when I found it. It's not like you hid it.' Jim said to her. 'Now answer my question, why do you have a gun in your room?' Jim said as his grip on the gun tightened.

'Why do you think?' Opal replied through gritted teeth.

'I think you should sit down.' Jim told her calmly, Opal stood still and didn't say anything. 'Opal sit down now.' He told her in a firm tone. She glanced at him before walking past him and sitting down on the sofa. Jim said down across from her and placed the gun carefully on the coffee table. When he had found it he'd removed all of the bullets and had put them in his pocket just to be sure.

'When your mum left I promised you that I would always look after you no matter what and I intend to follow through on that promise. That's why I'm going to make a deal with you. I can't ignore this criminal business any more so I want you to let me do it for you. You'll still call all the shots, but people that you deal with will think that I'm in charge. I'd rather that I was the one being chased by the police, that I was the one on the wrong end of the gun, that I was the one dealing with dodgy criminals than you. I want to protect you and I know that I can't stop you.' Jim told Opal in what felt like one long breath, Opal just looked at him with wide eyes. She'd thought that he was going to tell her and off and try and stop her, not try and help her with all of this.

'Are you being serious dad?' Opal asked, Jim just replied with a nod. Opal thought about it for a few more minutes before speaking.

'So, let me get this straight, I'll be in charge of everything like I am not, I'll still be giving the orders but people will think that you're the one in charge so that I'm not in danger?' Opal asked carefully.

'Yeah pretty much, you'll be organising whatever it is and you'll tell me what I have to do but anyone that we deal with will believe that I'm the one at the top, not you.' Jim explained to her.

'I think that we should discuss this in some more detail dad.' Opal said with a small smile.

* * *

Present day (Jim's 35, Opal's 17) (During Reichenbach Fall) 

Idiot, Jim thought as he turned his cup round, how could Sherlock not have deduced by now that he was left-handed?

'What made you become a criminal? You have a fantastic brain, why don't you use it for good?' Sherlock asked, Jim looked at him.

'What do you mean?' He asked him, remembering to use an Irish accent; he and Opal had come up with a brand new identity of the criminal mastermind James Moriarty. The Irish accent was a little something that gave him character. Jim had found that when he was being Moriarty he would really get into his character, he had started to think like he would think and act like he would act.

'I mean what made you turn to crime, something must have happened. Something always happens.' Sherlock said as he leaned forwards towards him and rested his chin on his hands.

'It wasn't something, it was someone.' Jim dropped the accent for the last part; Sherlock's gaze never left him, his expression never faltering.

'Someone close to you, you wanted to protect them so you turned to crime, I don't understand. But it was someone that you love, someone that you would do anything for. A lover, a sibling possibly?' Sherlock wondered out loud.

'You're right about it being someone close to me, someone that I love more than anything else on this corrupt planet. But it's not a lover and I'm an only child.' Jim said to him as he watched Sherlock try to analyse him.

'Who then, who could you love enough to do the things that you for them?' Sherlock asked in genuine wondering.

'My daughter, she's seventeen and I do all of this to protect her.' Jim said with a sigh, it felt like he had been carrying this secret around with him everywhere and now he had finally got rid of it.

'But how would this protect her, surely her father being the world's only consulting criminal would put her in danger?' Sherlock asked and Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes, he thought that this man was meant to be a genius.

'Have you not got it yet? I'm not the world's only consulting criminal, she is. She's the criminal mastermind, not me. I could never think up the things that she thinks up. All of this is her doing, she gives me the orders and I dish them out. There are only three people in this world who know the truth, me Opal and now you and if you tell anyone then I'll have you killed. For years now I've been putting my life at risk because I can't let her go straight into the dangerous world when I knew that I could prevent it, when I knew that I could help her.' Jim explained to Sherlock. The two men sat there in silence for a few minutes, Sherlock processing what he'd just been told, Jim staring into space.

'When did Opal's mother leave?' Sherlock asked Jim shouldn't have been surprised as he was at the statement; Sherlock was a master at the science of deduction after all.

'When she was three weeks old, I haven't seen her in seventeen years and I don't want to see her. Opal found her though, about a year ago. She had someone follow her whilst she decided if she wanted to see her or not. She decided not to when she saw her with her family, how happy she was. She told me that she didn't want to ruin that for her. We haven't mentioned her since then.' Jim said to him.

'Understandable, I won't tell anyone about Opal. You have my word on that Moriarty. I can see that you're a good man who wants to do good by his daughter so I won't tell anyone about this conversation. It stays between us two, no-one else will hear about this from me.' Sherlock said to Jim, Jim simply mouthed 'thank you' at him.

* * *

**OK so that was my first attempt at a Sherlock fanfic, I hope that you liked it :)**


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